In what’s been a rough season at Madison Square Garden, few Rangers losses hurt more than the two lopsided defeats at the hands of the Devils earlier in the year.
So perhaps there was some extra meaning to Thursday night’s thrilling 3-2 overtime win over their cross-river rivals, which ended with a goal from the unheralded Sam Carrick at 2:48 in the extra session.
The victory continued what’s an admittedly small stretch in which the Rangers are 3-1-1 after losing four in a row late last month.
Nevertheless, their play has been better, and they had goalie Igor Shesterkin back in net after he missed four games with an upper-body injury.
This one didn’t come easily — and followed a tough overtime defeat to Dallas in their previous game.
But the Rangers, after tying the game at 2-2 late in the second period, dominated most of the third and had nothing to show for it.
Then Carrick took a nice feed from Reilly Smith and buried it to send the Rangers on an upcoming West Coast road trip with a victory, their first OT win of the year.
“I think I might have blacked out,’’ Carrick said of his reaction to the game-winner, just his third goal of the season.
He added that the win was part of a bigger turnaround in the locker room.
“We made a few tweaks here and there and are starting to get our identity back here,’’ Carrick said. “We want to be a tough team to play against. We kind of got away from that, but we’re taking steps in the right direction.”
Having Carrick score the game-winner was “awesome,’’ according to Peter Laviolette.
“He doesn’t usually get out there that much,” the coach said of Carrick, who got more time Thursday due to the absence of Filip Chytil, out with an upper-body injury.
“He’s played some good hockey for us lately. He’s been on the attack offensively. He hits [and] does a lot of dirty work in the defensive zone. When a guy like that scores a goal, you’re really happy for him.”
Laviolette was pleased with the entire performance, noting the team’s play on defense, which has been questionable at times this year — especially versus New Jersey.
The Rangers on Thursday were looking for some redemption after being outscored 10-1 by the Devils in their previous two meetings.
The most recent defeat was followed by the Devils mocking the Rangers on social media, comparing the Blueshirts to a dumpster fire.
The Rangers put up a much better fight Thursday.
They entered having dropped 11 of their previous 15 games, while the Devils had lost four of five.
The Rangers took the lead at 12:05 in the first thanks to a power-play goal from Adam Fox, who wound up and fired it past Jacob Markstrom. It was Fox’s first non-empty-net goal of the season and came off a faceoff win by Vincent Trocheck.
Shesterkin was strong, making 11 saves in the first period, although the Devils nearly took an early lead when Nico Hischier deflected a Luke Hughes shot and it got by Shesterkin, but hit off the crossbar.
The Rangers also killed a pair of penalties in the opening period after the Devils went 5-for-8 with the extra man in the first two meetings.
The Devils tied the game at 1-1 early in the second period when Jack Hughes scored his 16th goal of the season — and fifth in three games against the Rangers — knocking in a deflection off a shot by Brett Pesce at 4:03, and Jesper Bratt beat Shesterkin at 8:28 to put the Devils up, 2-1.
Artemi Panarin tied it at 2-2 at 17:13 of the second with the Rangers’ second power-play goal of the night.
The Rangers had a flurry of activity in front of the Devils’ net early in the third and had the first eight shots of the period, but couldn’t capitalize.